'Quanto concede la Guerra' : epic masculinity and the education of desire in Taso's 'Gerusalemme Liberata'.

The idea that masculinity has a history is fairly recent. This collection opens new paths in literary and theatre studies by addressing not only how literary texts represented masculinity but how different representational strategies in such texts produce masculinity. They thus offer provocative answers to the question of what it meant to be a “man” on the newly global stage. While the volume as a whole offers a new way of thinking about literary histories, the individual articles offer reflections on the relationship between gendered meanings and the sophisticated, self-conscious, representational form of language that is called literature. What is especially innovative about this collection is its success in moving beyond the obvious cultural focus of the topic to consider how literary genre also affected the way masculinity was viewed. Such an approach brings a fresh perspective on current debates about the nature, extent and contemporary meaning of male/male sexual practices in the pre-modern and early modern period